On solving the cornea

摘要

Thirty years ago, in 1982, I was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. I had just submitted my PhD dissertation to The University of Melbourne on the topic of corneal oxygenation during contact lens wear. I spent a considerable amount of time in Berkeley reading about the cornea and wondering what further research I could do in this area. In those days-prior to the arrival of the digital computer-only primitive tools were available for investigating the cornea. We had good quality optical slitlamp biomicroscopes but these were limited to x40 magnification. Great insights were gained in respect of understanding the corneal endothelium, which could be examined at approximately x200 magnification with a specular microscope1 or an optical attachment to a slitlamp eyepiece;2 however, the rest of the cornea largely remained a mystery.